Sunday, 30 March 2008

Romance

I tried to desist. But it’s no use.

Pal Kenneth found something special and was kind enough to make the ultimate sacrifice and give it to me. It’s an issue of a magazine called ‘Good Time’ which specialises, as it says on the cover, in hotels and dining out in the UAE. It is wonderful beyond words and I shall treasure it for a good time to come.

The magazine has, I believe, been written in the original Arabic and translated by a very literally minded person or an automated translation system. It is possible, just possible, that the translator is struggling to do his work under the influence of something chemical and powerfully psychosomatic. I suspect the latter, but whatever the cause, the results in print are rarely short of majestic.

Consider this, then. On the Emirates Palace Hotel:

“Emirates Palace Hotel... wonderful architectural masterpiece enthralled eyes by design and ingenuity construction, its beauty takes you to the grand atmosphere a lot of people not tasked like this previously...”

This is the stuff, no? We go on:

“Combining internal decor of the rooms between the designs Arab nobility and modern techniques of modern classical form and Duke simple harmony between sophistication and dazzling which exceeded expectations of visitors.”

A good review, then. And written in precise, clear language that anyone who has written copy for a Dubai real estate company would truly appreciate.

A review of Singapore’s Marina Mandryan Hotel takes us into a new world of strange, acid-fuelled other-space. The hotel is, apparently:

“Characterized as a signatory in the heart of the Israeli ‘Marina any’ vital...” And if that weren’t enough by itself, the hotel’s spa, “means all procedures and treatments that remove tension and make the eradication times Hotel Marina Mandarin fun fact.”

Quite.

Passing through Australia, “beauty country” the magazine tells us, we land at Bab Al Shams which is, apparently, “constructed in the form of a traditional Arab bulwark”. It is here that the powerful hallucinogenics have really started to jack in with a deep surge of synapse-frying electrical overload. Struggling for some kind of control, our man is by now quite obviously pulling the text together through a haze of images and bad-trip sounds and smells.

“Reflecting the spirit of grandeur himself prepared to provide dreamy atmosphere during handling and jpetk between instance, the visitor to a restaurant Knights will never forget the quality of the dishes provided underlying crew of cooks months in region.”

Smashing his head against the keyboard in an effort to retain some semblance of control, gnashing his teeth and keening in a high pitched wail, he goes on, a cry for help echoing in his writing: “I need to go Asterkhaek search for love outside the diet...”

The following review of an offroad safari confirms that the trip has turned very, very bad. Fighting off the gryphons and gibbering from fear of the shapes oozing out of the black, limitless corners of the room, our man is scared of offroading:

“We cry of the terror and great surprise...we have barely believe what is happening to us and going by the positions we were not to live...”

And then, finally, a feature on dining in the dark completes what has been a most interestingly Keseyesque roadtrip, an electric cool-aid acid test magazine:

“the difference lies in the exchange of roles where the guest in the Welfare of the blind (waiters) then, as if he is not sighted while waiters (blind) who are moving freely as if they are sights and servicing customers kindling pleasure dependent on them.” And then, deep into the review: “...in the home does not find a black guest, but not the only voice heard music and faint? Dishes and Spoons and some chats and laughs...”

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Fake Plastic Souks

I write books, I consult on publishing, media and digital communications, I cook. I spend quite a lot of my time laughing and do try not to be a stick-waving, spittle-flecked angry old man. I fail in this occasionally.